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Jason Snell for Macworld

Apple’s a company with a long-term product vision. Next week we’ll see the 2017 iPhones unveiled at the Steve Jobs Theater, but people inside Apple are already working hard on the 2018 model… and probably on the new features that will populate the 2019 and 2020 versions, too.

While the most interesting things to come out of any Apple event are the new product announcements, one of my favorite things about any Apple announcement is how it makes some of Apple’s previous decisions more understandable in hindsight. As outside observers who can’t peer into Apple’s inner workings, we don’t always have the necessary context to understand where the company is going.

But sometimes, if we’re fortunate, we can intuit some things about Apple’s direction in advance. And if a few of the rumors of the next-generation iPhone are true, some of Apple’s previous decisions start to be part of a much bigger story.